How to Overcome the Key Challenges Physicians Are Facing in This Digital Era?

As new technologies and new systems emerge to help physicians’ offices, hospitals, and other medical practices to provide more efficient care to the patients, these also create new challenges. It is necessary to give immediate attention to address all the difficulties that are posed by technology and the economy in healthcare. Before, they can lead to more intricate issues and costly errors.

Here, the financial challenges, pandemic, overburdened administrative requirements, burnouts are on top of the minds of many physicians. Perhaps, the global pandemic has induced barriers for healthcare providers- either they are struggling financially or facing issues handling medical care management.

Physicians are tossing between several hurdles and problems, despite their devotion to their profession. They are figuring out new ways to reduce the tension that arose due to complications like shifting payments models to government mandates. And they are continuously struggling to cope with the current financial situation, trying to coordinate and communicate with patients to alleviate the risk of chronic diseases, etc.

At this point, when everything is vague, the checklist given below can provide top-level guidance to administrators and other practice owners for streamlining their business operations efficiently.

How to Reduce Burnout & Handle Practice Workflow?

Right now, physicians are at high risk of burnout in the modern progressive healthcare environment. The major causes of burnout that are seen so far are packed workdays, emotional intensity, and time constraints. Burnout is referred to as a reaction of chronic pressure due to a lack of sense of individual attainment, emotional fatigue, and depersonalization. Practitioners are facing a descending spiral in their mental or physical health.

An AMA study has shown that in everyday medical practice, more than half of the physicians either indirectly or directly feel the consequences of burnout. For the healthcare community, it is a devastating time. A significant rate of post-traumatic stress, insomnolence, tension, depression has been seen in various community doctors out there.

There are many things you can do to prevent burnout as a healthcare provider. One solution to increase your quality of life instead of increased pay is to opt for time off. Moreover, you can use automated solutions to automate the manual tasks that can protect clinical staff from administrative burden and patients from depriving essential services.

This can help you reduce the risk of safety or liability to your practice. In addition to this, here are the most effective burnout prevention strategies given below.

● Identify what you want from your work.

● Increase your self-efficacy.

● Eliminate roadblocks.

● Encourage healthy work-life integration.

● Take care of yourself.

● Try to focus on the positive impacts.

● Have creative outlets.

● Create realistic goals and expectations.

● Get support where you can find it.

● Improve your dietary habits, take a balanced diet.

● Maintain your schedule.

How to Negotiate With Payers To Know Your Insurance Coverage?

Negotiation may not even seem like an option so the challenge of negotiating with payers over the contracts may seem unimportant. You may feel difficulty not standing to negotiate with payers if you work in a small or single practice.

Oftentimes, instead of banging your head against the wall, you accept what they pay out. But, it shouldn’t go like this. If you take the right step you can negotiate for those rates that meet your needs.

When you counter an offer, think outside the box. For example, if you don’t get the desired pay rates, ask for valuable concessions like an easier process of prior authorization and an increased period to resubmit the claims. Find out the right payers after researching them. For instance, if they are eager to decrease hospitalization rates and drop readmission rates support your commitment against these problems by sharing information with them. Demonstrate a pattern of keeping things low-cost and present positive quality of care data.

In addition to this, you can show off your social media, patient reviews, community presence and tell them how your practice is serving during the financial crisis. Figure out your break-even points by analyzing the fee schedules and finances. Walk away, if the insurance payers are not meeting this threshold. Negotiate your reimbursement rates by holding insurance payers accountable.

Furthermore, an incredibly valuable solution to cope with this challenge is to work with a third-party analyst outside of your practice and seek out an honest bias-free analysis of your healthcare organization from them.

How to Get Reimbursements On Time?

Consistently getting paid’’ is another top-class challenge the healthcare community is facing nowadays. Although many doctors take it easy, only 13% of all physicians find it challenging to get fair reimbursements according to a 2021 report of Medscape Physician Compensation.

Nevertheless, accurate coding, as well as proper documentation, can ensure proper reimbursement levels and help in avoiding denials. Insurance companies reject medical claims for two reasons - insufficient documentation and inaccurate coding.

Physicians can utilize innovative approaches to avoid E/M claims getting rejected.

● Firstly, you have to ensure your services are necessary and reasonable. Services need to be justifiable before coding matches with the rendered services.

● Secondly, when selecting E/M codes remember key variables the complexity of decision making, place/setting of service, patient type(established/new), and level of provided services based on examination/history, etc.

Furthermore, you can review CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) resources on getting paid for more tips.

How to Achieve EHR Interoperability In Healthcare?

You can share the information of your patients in the same hospital with a colleague with ease by using electronic health records, right? But can you share this information using a different EHR system with a provider in another hospital? This is one of the EHR interoperability conundrums.

The digital evolutions’ first part involves the federal government that steers physicians to integrate EHR for health record-keeping. Nowadays, physicians want to utilize advanced technology on different platforms by using the latest EHR systems including synching various sources of medical data to enhance the patient experience, remote patient monitoring, and telehealth, etc.

Luckily, there are many ways to make EHRs work for you and you don’t have to spend time on EHRs alone. Consider the following tips for enhancing the productivity of EHR in this digital era:

● Streamline form completion by implementing a mobile document library to save time.

● Utilize a solution like mobile medical dictation to avoid typing.

● Give patients access to in-office kiosks and online portals.

● Save your staff time so they can manage other core activities of the healthcare organization.

● Work with your billing partners to streamline data entry by eliminating unnecessary steps and customizing your settings.

● With the right resources, software, systems, you can optimize your clinical workflow- without interrupting patient care.

How to Enhance Patients’ Satisfaction?

A survey on ‘’Primary Care Physicians Report Challenges’’ by the Commonwealth Fund showed nearly 25% of primary care physicians in the US have seen inefficient care practices. Physicians mostly utilized their time managing the dual task of patient care and medical billing services. They spend 27% of their average shift with patients while 50% of their day is spent on other ‘’desk work’’ and electronic health records according to a study published by the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Giving sufficient time to patients to improve their satisfaction can benefit the overall financial health of your practice while accelerating revenue flow, increasing patient retention, and improving patient health. In addition, satisfied patients lead to improved quality scores and positive reviews which helps your healthcare business to thrive and grow to a remarkable level.

Additionally, adopting smart approaches can be beneficial for you such as:

● Changing your work environment.

● Sharing responsibilities with your staff.

● Streamlining work processes.

● Finding ways to make every second count for practicing medicine & handling medical care management efficiently.

Wrap Up

All in all, these are the daunting challenges that, also, enable providers to take better opportunities if tackled on time for enhancing the patient experience and providing them better care. These are of absolute concern of financial survival for healthcare professionals because of their ability to dwindle financial strength.

Advanced technology and innovative billing solutions can streamline your billing operations, optimize your workflow, keep you updated with the latest industry standards, reduce errors, and help you experience maximum business profitability.

Furthermore, by reducing your patients’ waiting time and taking measures to give them a friendly welcome to your practice, you would be able to start on the right foot for better patient satisfaction.